Salmon Leather: A Fishy Fabric, But Will Designers Take the Bait?

SALMON LEATHER \ˈsa-mən ˈle-thər\

n.1 a: A dyeable textile made from salmon skin—a byproduct of the fish processing industry that usually gets tossed into the landfill—using chemicals that are less toxic than those for tanning mammal hides because fish scales are easier to remove from skin than hair. (Note: no new salmon is killed expressly for its skin.) b: A resilient fabric that is stronger than most land leathers—and does not smell like fish. c: A reliable, affordable source of “sea leather” used by companies such as ES Salmon Leather, One October, Unnurwear, and Skini London in clothing, accessories, furnishing, home decor, and even bikinis.

9 Responses to “Salmon Leather: A Fishy Fabric, But Will Designers Take the Bait?”

Thank you for the post about salmon leather. Since you wrote this article ES Salmon Leather launched the product at 100 Percent Design Show in London, and won an award from the show’s sponsors, Blueprint Magazine, for “Best use of Materials.”

As you correctly stated, salmon leather is a textile, made by re-purposing salmon skin, a by-product of the salmon farming industry. Normally these skins would be thrown away.

Congratulations to ES Salmon Leather for their award, but also for creating some hype around salmon skin products.
We ourselves are in this business – please checkhttp://www.myskinthings.com
Regards from Michael at myskinthings

Salmon farms devastate the waterways they are created in and when the area is abused beyond use (usually resulting in algae-laden, oxygen-depleted “dead zones”) the farms simply move in to pristine waters to continue their unsustainable practices.

You should do some reading into the devastation Norwegian multi-nationals are wreaking in Chile’s Patagonian fjords in one of the most remote, pristine environments left.

It staggers me that a site talking about “vegan style” regards wearing the skin of another animal to be acceptable – but then it’s only worth protecting if it’s furry with big brown eyes right?

In most fishing industries the byproduct (waste) after removing the food product is used to make excellent fertilizer. It’s a shame if the Chilean farmed fish industry was actually throwing this rich fertilizer away. And in that case should we really be supporting the farmed fish industry, given the ecological damage, and problems that the farmed fish industry creates (disease transmission to wild fish stock, using high-protein fish to feed farmed fish, addition of dyes to farmed salmon feed pellets, etc.).